“Why, to make the world anew, of course.”
The man in the blade-brim hat hoisted the Phobus Helmet. Séverin recoiled. He would do anything—anything—not to wear that cursed thing again.
“And it’s nearly time,” said Roux-Joubert.
He looked over his shoulder, grinning widely at the image of Enrique and Hypnos.
“Your friends have been most helpful. Which makes me think that perhaps I owe you something… a thank-you, of a sort. All this time, you wished to know where the West’s Babel Fragment lay, did you not? Perhaps you wanted to alert the Order? Warn them, even?”
Séverin said nothing. His gaze flicked to the image of Hypnos and Enrique. Still laughing.
Don’t look…
“You’ll soon find out,” said Roux-Joubert, smiling. “You know, I rather like you. I think you could fit very well among our rank, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie. Should the doctor decide to let you live of course.”
Blearily, Séverin ran the word through his mind.Doctor. Whatdoctor? Roux-Joubert coughed again, this time more harshly. He dabbed at his mouth, spittle glossing his chin.
A sound echoed from the stage. Séverin forced his head to raise. Laila stood there. Behind her, holding a knife to her throat… Tristan. Séverin couldn’t look away from him. Tristan’s eyes were the same piercing gray they had always been. But Tristan’s eyes held no betrayal, only grief… and when he saw Séverin, his eyes widened. His mouth opened as if to speak, but something held him back. Séverin’s gaze flew to Laila. Laila, who was…mouthingsomething to him. Beside her, Tristan’s eyes glistened.
Séverin couldn’t read her lips. His head still felt fuzzy from the Phobus Helmet. But he watched her hands. How they squeezed Tristan’s wrist. As if she weren’t fighting back… but reassuring him.
Before him, Roux-Joubert tore off the honeybee pendant from his lapel. He twisted it sharply, and the ground ruptured beneath them.
“Now it begins.”
Séverin tried to take advantage of the chaos. He lurched forward, but an object whizzed through the air, sharp and whistling. The blade-brimmed hat of Roux-Joubert’s accomplice caught the edge of his jacket, pinning him to the ground.
“That would be a poorly thought out move on your part, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie.”
Séverin could only watch as the ground beneath him changed. The deep, spiraled grooves set into the earth glowed a faint blue.Bones peeled off the walls. They began to merge, cobbling themselves together into terrible shapes. The dead were bent into thrones and crosses, grotesque skeletons wearing crowns, and cruelly formed beasts. He felt a cataclysm rising inside him, of true Forged power, not the ornamentation and posturing of the Order, but the very thing that had sewn itself into humanity.
“Are you familiar with the word ‘apotheosis,’ Monsieur?” asked Roux-Joubert. Ichor dribbled from his lip.
Séverin didn’t respond.
“It’s… a moment ofascension.From mortal to immortal. Man to God. And you shall witness it, but you shall not be alone. The doctor will see what I have done, and I will be glorious beyond reckoning,” he wheezed.
Roux-Joubert raised his hands. All along the walls, the bones shivered. They peeled off the walls—skulls, femurs, necklaces of teeth—careening down from the terraces, knitting themselves together. The bones clasped together, the sound like thunder.
With the scarlet curtains fully drawn back, the image on the Tezcat mirror shivered. Across, Enrique and Hypnos had not registered the danger. They smiled and carried on, not even raising their heads.
“Séverin,” called Laila softly.
Her dark eyes were wide and glossy. There was a plea to her voice. One that Séverin didn’t know how to answer. Because maybe Roux-Joubert was right. Maybe there was no hope. They had intended to deliver the Horus Eye to the Order. To show them where the Babel Fragment lay hidden. They thought the Babel Fragment would be far away, hidden somewhere far from the Fallen House.
At that moment, the ground pitched forward. Séverin went sprawling as the dirt rose to meet and sting his face. His skin smarted from the slash that Roux-Joubert had left near his temple. He lay there, straining against his ropes, his cheek flattened onto the slickgravel of the catacombs. He inhaled a shuddering breath. In the end, their assumptions had been wrong.
The Babel Fragment washere… hidden deep beneath the catacombs.
Roux-Joubert dropped the Ring of House Kore to the ground. The Ring sank through the dirt, and lightning crackled through the ground. Then, from his jacket, Roux-Joubert removed another Ring… this one darkened by time. A cruel six-pointed star. The missing Ring of the Fallen House. It joined the Ring of House Kore, and the skeletons drifted into the air.
“It’s waking,” said Roux-Joubert.
Séverin lifted his gaze. The skeletons flung themselves at the Tezcat door. He knew what they were doing. They were trying to break down the barrier. And once they did, they would be there for all the world to see… for just on the other side lay crowds of tourists; the entire Exposition Universelle would witness the rebirth of the Fallen House.
Roux-Joubert wheezed, then forced a smile onto his face. “Let’s greet your friends, shall we?”
27
